“Yes,” said Hardman, after they had smoked in silence for some time, “the place we saw to-day may be payable, but there ain’t much to be done with it. What one wants is to get on to a mine on private property, with no reservation of minerals to the Crown, so that one could get the whole mine into one’s hands.”
“Fancy that, now, buying a farm for a few hundreds on which there might be a mine worth millions and millions. But we have got to find it, and without the owner or any one else knowing anything about it!” said Mr Timson, as much to himself as to his companion.
“Right you are, Smarty! we have got to do that. It’s well enough to talk as one smokes one’s pipe; but it’s a hundred to one, one never gets such a chance. For all that, mind you, the chance may come; that’s what living in a mining country means. There is always the hope of a big fortune for the man who knows how to make the most of his luck.”
Mr Timson listened to the other, and began to indulge in a delicious day-dream of what he would do, and how he would live if he were the owner of a diamond mine, with hundreds of pounds a day to spend. If it were only possible, he thought—possible! it was possible, he declared to himself, as he thought how fortunate he had been already. He was half asleep and half awake when he was woke up by hearing a strange voice inquiring the way to Pneil, a digging on the Vaal River some twenty-five miles off. The new-comer, who was on foot, was a tall man with a long beard; he was dressed in tattered clothes, and had on an old hat which had seen many years’ service. He looked travel-worn and tired; as Timson looked at him, he noticed a peculiar scar on his face and a curious droop in one eyelid.
Hardman told him the distance. “It’s a long stretch and a sandy road; you had better sit down and take a drink,” he added, pouring some beer out into a glass as he spoke.
“It’s a long time since I had a glass of beer,” the stranger said as he emptied the glass.
“How’s that? been sworn off?” asked Hardman.
“No, nor much need to. I’ve been living where you don’t get many chances of taking too much to drink; a hundred miles beyond the Tati Gold-Fields. I’ve tramped it down and had a pretty hard time of it.”
“Well, you’d better take a rest and have something to eat,” said Hardman, as he pushed a plate and some cold meat towards the stranger, who, without any more pressing, accepted the other’s hospitality, and after he had made a good meal, filled his pipe and smoked for some time without joining in the conversation, the other two going on talking about diamonds and new mines.
At last he broke in: “Have they worked out the New Rush, the Colesberg Kopje, as they called it?”